Climbing comes to Asheville's River Arts District

Feb. 25, 2014

This rendering, courtesy of Glazer Architecture, shows what is envisioned for the Smoky Mountain Adventure Center: a climbing center, cafe and outdoor gear rental shop being built on Amboy Road in the Asheville River Arts District. / Glazer Architecture / Special to the Citizen-Times

Written by

Karen Chávez|

Stuart Cowles, owner of Climbmax, is expanding his business into the River Arts District with the groundbreaking of the Smoky Mountain Adventure Center on Amboy Road. / Erin Brethauer / (ebrethau@citizen-times.com)

FAST FACTS

• The new center will total 6,000 square feet • The climbing wall will reach 34 feet high • Includes space for a cafe, yoga studio, and outdoor recreation gear rental businesses

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After 20 years, Stuart Cowles is still hanging around town.

But Cowles, the owner of Climbmax Indoor Climbing Center, will be hanging — climbing, reaching and growing — in another part of town, when he expands his longtime Wall Street business into the River Arts District.

The groundbreaking for the new Smoky Mountain Adventure Center took place Tuesday at 173 Amboy Road, sitting in between the French Broad River Park and Karen Cragnolin and Carrier parks, and across the street from city-owned parking and a greenway. It will house the RAD’s first permanent climbing wall and add to the ever-growing outdoor recreation options in the once-gritty factory-turned-arts-eatery-and tourism-friendly river corridor.

“We’ve been working on it for five years. It stemmed from the need to think about a new future for Climbmax,” said Cowles, 48, who opened the indoor and outdoor climbing wall downtown in 1994, when there were fewer than a dozen climbing gyms in the whole country.

“I originally thought, why are people coming to Asheville, and then leaving to go to Bryson City to get on the river or leave to go fishing? The concept became this one-stop outdoor adventure facility. I’ve always wanted to be part of the city I live in, not out by the airport. That’s why I chose Wall Street 20 years ago, and that’s why I thought the river is the next best place.”

The Smoky Mountain Adventure Center will be about 6,000 square feet, on about an acre of land across from the French Broad River and city greenway system. It will be two stories and house a 34-foot-high climbing wall (as opposed to the 20-foot wall at Climbmax), as well as spaces for Cowles’ backpack sewing business Earthsports Design, and party and yoga studio space. There will also be an upstairs cafe called the Hangout, selling locally made food, enhanced by an outdoor patio with a glimpse of the river.

Cowles said plans also call for a few kiosk outbuildings that will rent outdoor recreation gear, such as bicycles, tubes, canoes, standup paddleboards and fishing gear in partnership with local businesses. He estimates the center will employ at least 20 people, including four full-time workers.

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The center began with a $100,000 grant from the Buncombe County Tourism Development Authority in 2010. Cowles said the grant was graciously extended while he secured partnerships, which he has with banking partner TD Bank.

Cowles and part-time Asheville resident Daniel Nash bought the land, which they will lease to Smoky Mountain Adventure Center, which in turn will lease to Climbmax, Earthsports and other companies that will provide rentals. He said he is seeking those equipment rental partners.

The actual building will be built to be flood-proof, he said, in a team effort with Patti Glazer of Glazer Architecture contractor Buchanan Construction of Asheville.

“It’s a very challenged site — it’s a long, skinny site with a cliff behind it, in a flood-fringe area,” Glazer said. “Our project consists of 11-foot high concrete-reinforced walls that are designed to withstand the rushing water. The only opening on the lower portion is the main entrance with double doors that have flood gates. On top of that we have perched a pre-engineered steel building.”

The overall building will be two stories, with a “tall space” for the indoor climbing wall, Glazer said, which will reach to about three stories. There are also plans for an outdoor climbing wall.

“I think it’s great because Asheville doesn’t have a climbing wall that you can lead climb on (climbing by using a rope and clicking into protection as you go, vs. using a top rope). It will be a state of the art climbing wall,” said Ed Williams, a longtime outdoor and indoor rock climber from Asheville.

“When this gets built and the New Belgium Brewery (on Craven Street) gets built and it’s all connected by greenway, I can leave from my house, bike to the climbing gym and then go the brewery for a refreshing beverage. I think the rental aspect is great. A lot of people like to paddle the river, and tube, so it will be nice to have a place right there where you can get all you need.”

Karen Cragnolin, executive director of RiverLink, a nonprofit working on revitalization of the French Broad River and the River Arts District, said she believes Smoky Mountain Adventure Center will add to the overall economic development of the RAD’s outdoor recreation offerings.

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The center sits just east of the longtime Asheville Outdoor Center, a paddling rental and instruction company. Not far away on Riverside Drive is the year-old Asheville Adventure Rentals, another paddle gear rental shop, that sits on land owned by RiverLink.

“The Harvard Business School says if you’re going to open an ice cream shop, you should put it on a street with other ice cream shops because that will increase people’s overall awareness that that is the place to go for ice cream,” Cragnolin said. “I think it makes the pie bigger, it doesn’t make it smaller. Stuart is an all-around outdoorsman, so he will make something right.”

Cowles, an expert mountaineer and certified climbing guide, was one of the founders of the Mountain Sports Festival, a three-day festival showcasing Asheville’s outdoor sports, in 2000. He said he will keep running Climbmax in a space he rents from the city and make it more family friendly.

At Smoky Mountain, he hopes to create a world-class climbing facility that will eventually include an elevated adventure course with a ropes course and zip line element, and said he has been in communication with the city to install a crosswalk from the center to the greenway. He expects the center to open by the fall.

“My hope is people can rent a tube, go down the river, then come back and let their kids rock climb. My hope is that people will have lunch, have dinner, get a hotel room and stay in Asheville,” he said. “We’re really excited about it. Our river has the potential to develop in a really great way.”